administrations go. he is the 44th president, and what always startles people is that there had been on the 18th of the 40 for president, only 18 who have been elected to a second term. that's pretty astonishing. and there have been only 13 who served eight years or more. franklin roosevelt served of course for 12, but three of them of course never got to the second term. lincoln was assassinated. mckinley was assassinated, and nixon was forced to resign. obama will be just the 14th president to have served eight years when he gets through his second term. but it's the second term curse. would we be sitting here talking in this way about kennedy if he had had a second term? i doubt it. he would have been a significant president but he would have also run into difficulty. what would you do about vietnam? it would depend the usual second term difficulties in the sense he was a lame duck. obama is struggling now i think it's no secret to say that, and i think kennedy would've struggled, too, in a second ter